FALL 2010 START UP FOR GROUP PLACEMENT 
September 7-9 (Tuesday through Thursday) September 13-16 (Monday through Thursday) 10 & younger from 4-4:45 11 & older from 4:45-5:30pm All at the Jamerson Family Y. Just show up with goggles and suit ready to swim! Try us out with no obligation.
LY Finishes Strong in Long Course Season
LY finished the summer championship season strongly, with Hunter Morris, Blake Proffit, and Logan White all 
representing Virginia Swimming at the Zone meet in Rockville, Maryland. Logan set two new team records for 13-14 boys with a 2:23.58 in the 200 meter fly, and a 5:00.49 in the 400 meter IM. Carter Head, Kemp Pettyjohn, and Susanna White ended the summer with a trip to Irvine, California, to represent LY in the USAS Junior National Championship. Along with petting the sea anenomes on Laguna Beach, taking in an Angels game, visiting the Long Beach Aquarium, marveling over the La Brea Tar Pits, and searching for stars on Ho
llywood Boulevard, these swimmers also got in some competition. Kemp dropped 30 seconds from his personal best time in the 1500 meter freestyle and set a new team record in the 17-18 boys with a 16:34.15. Carter set a new team record in the 17-18 boys 200 breaststroke with a 2:28.88 and picked up a qualifying time for the short course Junior National meet. Susanna appeared in consol finals in the 50 meter free and moved from 16th to 14th place. The LY women finished 72nd overall out of a field of 407 teams! Nice job everyone! Pictures here.
2010-2011 Short Course Season: DIVING IN
Our emphasis at LY Swimming is long-term development with the focus on the individual. We will be teaching our swimmers appropriate techniques and skills before we worry about our swimmers swimming fast. We want our swimmers to look good first. A swimmer that does the strokes correctly will have a better chance of developing over the long run. The youngest swimmers, our Blue Group, will work exclusively on mechanics and technique. Proper pull patterns, kicking, streamlining, racing starts, circle swimming, reading the clock, breathing patterns, are all part of the beginning swimmer’s introduction to competitive swimming. Constant repetition helps these young swimmers improve during their basic motor learning period. Their endurance will develop through regular practice attendance.
Gold group swimmers will work on perfecting stroke mechanics and then increasing their training workloads. Sometimes swimmers will have slower racing times while they are working to correct flawed strokes, but correct mechanics now will contribute to successful, fast swimming later. We believe in this long-term approach to success and development. Please trust our very experienced coaching staff to look out for the best interests of your swimmer and please don’t encourage them to go faster at practices when the coach may be telling them to slow down and do it right.
Also, try not to compare your swimmer to any other swimmer. Every child is different and has different talents, abilities, and needs. In addition, studies show that a child’s biological age (measuring physical maturity) may vary plus or minus two years from their actual, chronological age. We will work with every swimmer to find a pace of progress that is enjoyable, natural, and not overwhelming to them. Of course regular practice attendance will help your swimmer advance more quickly, but we also recognize that swimmers may not make all the practices available as they may be involved in many activities outside the pool. Don’t worry. We will try to work with everyone’s goals and expectations surrounding their competitive swimming career. At the same time, National swimmers - those swimmers who are committed to swimming at a national level and hope to move on to college swimming - will need to make a commitment to practice time that will allow them to pursue their lofty goals. Training in this group will progress to demanding levels that will require regular practice attendance to keep up and to avoid injury.
If you are new to USA and YMCA Swimming, you are entering a world unlike any other, with a different language (short course pools are 25 yards and long course pools are 50 meters, swimming in drag does NOT mean you have to wear a dress in the water, and you don’t need a broom for three sweep) and a demanding, consuming schedule of practices, meets, and bills. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t have a clue what is going on for a while. But please DO ask questions! No question is too silly. Feel free to call or email the coaches.
